It is state of the art to store products, which shall be introduced into the vertical or nearly vertical product shafts of the automatic commissioning unit, on the rear side of an automatic commissioning unit. The storage may take place, for example, in static bays.
If it is necessary to store and refill larger quantities of products, flow shelves are used. The products are filled in original cardboard boxes on the rear side into the flow shelf. The cardboard boxes are opened on the front side when needed and individual products are filled into the automatic commissioning unit.
There also are solutions in which the filling of the throughput channels is performed by a two-dimensionally movable bay storage and retrieval unit, which is guided on rails and is longitudinally displaceable and at the same time adjustable in height in order to introduce products into a bay. The products are introduced here first onto a parking space in the bay storage and retrieval unit and pushed into the flow shelf when needed.
The solution based on a bay storage and retrieval unit for automatic filling has a number of drawbacks:
The possibility of retrofitting is almost always nonexistent because the buildings are too low in the area of the automatic units, and the ceilings have a load-bearing capacity that is too low for a high bay.
The throughput of a bay storage and retrieval unit is in many cases insufficient to transfer the desired quantity of products from parking spaces into the throughput channels.
Solutions with bay storage and retrieval units have to rely on the storage of a standard container. At least the width must be equal (e.g., 1 cardboard box of 600×400 or two cardboard boxes of 300×400).
All products in the flow shelves must be first introduced into the bay.
The energy consumption and the electric connected loads of a bay storage and retrieval unit are so high that the electric supply lines are often insufficient.